1989 Ferry Porsche and his four sons together became rarer as the years passed
Events bringing Ferry Porsche and his four sons together became rarer as the years passed. Yet for his 80th birthday in September 1989, most of the family and a few close friends descended on Zell am See, the traditional Porsche home south of Salzburg. In the foreground, beside the Panamericana that the company had presented to Ferry for the occasion are Hans-Peter, Gerd, Butzi and Wolfgang. It’s said that Ferry disliked the “beach buggy” Panamericana intensely. What his sons might have thought isn’t recorded. On the left is Hans-Peter, born 1940.
Total 911 recounts the story behind a famous picture from Porsche’s past…
He was the second son to join Porsche where, as production manager, he would clash with his cousin Ferdinand Piëch, the engineering director until 1972 when the Porsches and Piëchs all gave up their management roles. A major shareholder, Hans-Peter continues to serve on the VW and Porsche advisory boards and has spent much time creating a toy museum as well as perfecting his golf handicap. On his left is Gerd, two years older, who was never interested in the car business and became a farmer in Austria. He didn’t escape the malign attentions of Ferdinand either: in 1972, his cousin stayed at his farm and his affair with Gerd’s wife resulted in a son who would be brought up with Gerd’s other children.
The most famous Porsche son is, of course, Butzi who despite being a mere 54 looks almost as old as his father here. The heir apparent, he was cowed by Ferdinand and the opportunity (in 1972) to leave Porsche and run his own Porsche Design business couldn’t come soon enough. His appointment as head of the supervisory board to succeed his father in 1990, which coincided with a very difficult time for Porsche, wasn’t the happiest three years of the easy-going and likeable Butzi’s career.
Youngest son Wolfgang, like Gerd, never joined the firm and ploughed his own furrow, establishing the import of Japanese motorcycles to Austria and later working for Daimler Benz’s finance arm. From 1978, as a shareholder, he was a member of Porsche’s supervisory board and appointed Porsche spokesman after Ferry died in 1998; in 2007 he was elected chairman of the board. There he supported Wiedeking’s plan to take over VW, then suffered the humiliation of the reverse takeover engineered by VW chairman Piëch, which effectively made Porsche a VW subsidiary. In 2015 Wolfgang appeared to avenge this by leading the dissident group of fellow VW directors who forced Piëch to resign. When Dieselgate blew up six months later, it appeared a pyrrhic victory. A collector and sports car fan, Wolfgang, now 78, remains the Porsche figurehead.
In the background is the balding pate of Heinz Branitski, Porsche’s long-serving finance man. On this sunny autumn day in 1989 he was enjoying the last of his 15 months in the limelight as Porsche’s interim CEO.